Pesticides are commonly used in a multitude of settings, from homes, schools, and offices to manufacturing plants, cargo containers, and agricultural contexts. Most pesticides are generally insect or arachnid nervous system toxicants, inhibiting or overpotentiating synapse-synapse and/or neuro-muscular junction transmission, many acting specifically as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors.
Representative examples of pesticides include: 1) chlorinated phenyl and cyclodiene compounds such as DDT, chlordane, heptachlor, and aldrin and dieldrin; 2) the carbamate esters carbaryl, carbofuran, aldicarb, and baygon; 3) organic thiophosphate esters such as diazinon, malathion, parathion, and dicapthon; and 4) the synthetic pyrethroids allethrin, permethrin, resmethrin, and fenvalerate.
These and other pesticides present risks to human health. Although the rate of post-application degradation may vary widely, almost all pesticides present some direct risk to human health through residual toxicity, i.e. direct human contact with pesticide residues remaining after treatment, whether through inhalation of volatile toxic vapors, skin contact and transdermal absorption, or ingestion. In addition, many pesticides present indirect risks to human health in the form of environmental pollution, most notably pollution with persistent, halide-substituted organics which accumulate in the fat stores of food fish and other animals. These problems have led to complete bans on the use of some pesticidesxe2x80x94e.g., DDT, chlordane, heptachlor, aldrin, and dieldrinxe2x80x94while the continued use of the remaining pesticides has produced a new problem: the increasing development of widespread resistance to pesticides.
This resistance yields two results: 1) quick post-treatment reoccupation, by the same or a similar insect or arachnid, of the pesticidally-cleared area, and 2) the need and cost of continually engineering new pesticides (e.g., synthetic pyrethroids were developed because of resistance to the less toxic first generation pyrethrins). New pesticide production takes time and the new pesticides that result are almost universally more expensive than those they replace. In this context, traditional pesticides are applied on a regular, and typically increasing, basis. For example, many schools have come to be sprayed monthly or even biweekly, and with increasing quantities of pesticides to combat endemic roach re-infestations, often to no avail. This intensifies the problem of residual toxicity to people, especially to children who, as a result, may suffer headaches, grogginess, nausea, dizziness, irritability, frenetic behavior, and an impaired readiness to learn.
Because of these effects, it has been recognized that totally new approaches must be discovered and implemented in order to effectively control invertebrate pests without destroying human health and the environment. One such approach is xe2x80x9cintegrated pest managementxe2x80x9d (xe2x80x9cIPMxe2x80x9d).
Integrated pest management utilizes a variety of ecological strategies by taking advantage of pest behaviors and natural enemies, such as parasites, predators, and/or diseases. Examples of such strategies include the use of commercially available supplies of ladybugs to treat aphid infestations, the release of sterile males into populations of pests to decrease their genetic potential, the trapping or bait-poisoning of pests responding to a pheromone attractant, the application of juvenizing hormones to pests, and the release of spores of pest-pathogenic bacteria such as Bacillus thuringiensis. 
Usually a variety of these techniques must be used together since few result in broad-spectrum pest control. However, their use alone takes a significant investment of time, labor, and attention in order to attain a threshold level of pest control: pest populations must be monitored and recorded, occupants may be required to improve their housekeeping habits, and structural problems such as cracks and gaps must be identified and repaired. In addition, it is often necessary to quickly combat acute infestations, requiring treatment with traditional pesticides in the short term, in order to readily establish the long-term controls of IPM. Moreover, many of the ecological strategies have limited applicability in indoor environments such as offices and classrooms. Therefore, there is a need for a quick-acting, effective, residually non-toxic method for combatting insect, arachnid, and other pests which may be used as a replacement for traditional pesticide treatments and as a supplement to the arsenal of currently available IPM techniques.
Consequently, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for combatting invertebrate (i.e. insect and arachnid) and microbe (i.e. bacterial, algal, fungal, and/or viral) pests which is quick-acting, effective, and residually non-toxic and which may be used as a replacement for traditional pesticide treatments and as a supplement to the arsenal of currently available integrated pest management techniques.
It has been surprisingly found that the application of a composition comprising at least one protease enzyme is a method for exterminating pests which achieves these objectives. The enzyme component of the invention may comprise a single protease or a protease-containing mixture of enzymes, whether natural, preformed, or synthetic. In an alternate embodiment, the composition may also comprise a detergent component. This detergent component comprises one or more surfactant(s), detergent builder(s), or mixtures thereof.